Reading Between the Lines of the Miami Dolphins

Dolphins set to depart for their “home game” on another continent

Dolphins set to depart for their “home game” on another continent

UPDATE:Miko Grimes may travel to London for the game. I was thinking about this the other day, as some recently arrested people are prohibited from leaving town. I’m glad Miko can go. Despite a recent legal altercation, she is a very vocal and knowledgable Dolfan, and I’m sure her presence will be cool for Brent.

Meanwhile, did you see how great Will Davis played for the Ravens last night? Another one who Philbin/Management tossed away.

Most people say that Stephen Ross willingly gave away this “home” game coming up Sunday. This may be true, but I can find no proof of that. It could be that the NFL “ordered” or required the Dolphins to give up home field advantage.

The league is notoriously secretive about this stuff. Try to google “NFL’s mailing address” or “street address.” You’ll find remarkably cryptic results. Try calling the NFL’s publicity department or find a spokesman willing to answer “how are the London teams determined each year.” We tried pretty hard for nearly a week, and still got nowhere.

These guys get to watch the Dolphins play “at home” but not us.

So let’s not lay the blame entirely on Ross. Sometimes the NFL makes decisions, and the teams and players are bound by those decisions.

If the league decides something, then it must be done. Period. And there is no way to fight it.

Just ask Tom Brady. Oh wait.

In any event, it goes against everything in us to root against the Dolphins. But if we lose again, then that might be the final straw for Ross to fire Philbin. Is that worth the risk?

Do we actually root for the Jets to win, in hopes that it ends the Philbin era? We’d be 1-3 with a new head coach, and that is not an impossible record to overcome. Playoffs could still be had.

British fans go enraged when they paid to attend a football game and then find out that it’s a REAL football game, and not soccer.

But if we win, we all know Ross will be acting like we won the Super Bowl and be all happy and excited…just like he was last year when we were officially eliminated from the playoffs. If we want to get rid of Philbin, we can’t give Stephen Ross ANY reason to be happy.

Then again, even if we lose really ugly, then Stephen Ross could still stubbornly continue his mantra of telling us how Joe Philbin is the right man for the job.

32 Comments

As I studied the schedule before the season started I sincerely thought we’d go 5-0 or 4-1 the first 5 games. We had a PERFECT opportunity to start strong and build up some steam. Now that this hope is crushed we not only have to battle ourselves but also our schedule.

ADMIN!!! I called for everyone to RELAX during the preseason but I meant the fans…. not the team. Barring some major turnaround we are headed for another mid to late teen 1st round draft pick.

Do you guys remember the ’94 or ’95 splurge we made in free agency? Keith Jackson, Keith Byers, Steve Emptman, Irving Fryer (good signing), and others? I hope Stills/Cameron/Jennings/Suh don’t follow suit. This season is 1 loss away from being a waste.

What is really sad is the fact that the Colts Ravens and now steelers are all fading. The window of opportunity is there this season but the Fins can’t get their shit together. Now that really bothers me….

I heard that teams offering to give up a home game to play abroad are VERY well compensated and are given priority to host a SB down the road. I am sure the NFL is not “ordering” any team to give up a home game especially when they have volunteers every season.

Ross always gives up a win or advantage for money. This isn’t the 1st time we’re playing abroad. And remember when he had Tim Tebow day and we lost to the cheers of Tebow fans rooting for the Broncos?
He also alienated Miami Hurricane fans by honoring hated rival Gator Tebow on the Canes home field when he wasn’t even a Dolphin. Can you say stupid greedy?

First, the Dolphins volunteered to be the designated home team in London. That’s how one slot in a London game is filled — a team volunteers to give up one of its home games, and play in London instead.

The other spot is filled by the normal, rotational process of NFL scheduling. So a team can’t refuse to play in London as the designated road team. Just like any other game, the league schedules the “road” team for a London game.

Once the Dolphins volunteered to play a home game in London, there was immediately a chance the Jets would be shipped there.

What about lost ticket revenue for the designated home team? Does the ticket revenue from the London game go entirely to that team?

No. But the NFL does have an unspecified system in place to make sure a team doesn’t lose home-game ticket revenue by volunteering to play in London. According to the Sun-Sentinel, the Dolphins received $1 million from the NFL for giving up this home game against the Jets, in order to play in London.

The newspaper also noted that NFL owners voted last autumn “to require that teams aspiring to host a Super Bowl play a home game in London within five years of their successful bid process.”

While this will be the Jets’ first London game, it’ll be the Dolphins’ third trip there, and second as the home team. Miami was the home team in the NFL’s first regular-season game in London, Giants-Dolphins in 2007.

A team that usually has major ticket demand for its home games — like the Jets and Giants — isn’t going to surrender a home game and volunteer to play in London.

Here’s the list of home teams for the NFL’s London games: Jaguars (three times), Dolphins (twice), Buccaneers (twice), Saints, 49ers, Rams, Vikings, Raiders, Falcons, and Chiefs. Most of those teams aren’t huge home draws.

Out of the 14 already played or scheduled regular season games in London, the NFL has spread around its designated road assignments — the teams that don’t choose to play in London, unlike the volunteering home team.

The Patriots have been shipped twice as a road team. Ditto for the Lions, who make their second trip this year. And the Dolphins and 49ers both have one road game appearance, in addition to their London “home” games.

But these teams have made just one London appearance, period, and it came as the road team: Giants, Chargers, Broncos, Bears, Steelers, Cowboys, Jets, and Bills — who, like the Jets, are going this year.

By the end of this season, 20 teams will have played in London, over the course of the series’ 14 games, with six teams making multiple trips: Miami, New England, Tampa Bay, San Francisco, Jacksonville, and Detroit.

Presumably, the NFL will continue to try to spread out those London “road” game assignments, for teams who don’t volunteer to go. But there’s a regular, rotational process to the league’s schedule. So the NFL can’t just shoehorn a designated road team into a London game.

Considering the Packers and Seahawks are successful and popular teams, it seems reasonable that the NFL would want to give London fans a chance to see them.

But if neither team volunteers to give up a home game (and why would they?), then going to London depends, for them, on if they’re already scheduled to play a road game against a team that volunteers to “host” a London game.

The Jaguars next season will play a home game in London for the fourth straight year. But they don’t want to surrender their home game against the Packers to a London trip. This makes sense. The game will actually draw well in Jacksonville.

Interesting, thank you. I guess the bottom line that Ross VOLUNTARILY gave up the home game. During the preseason interviews, I remember him (more than once) bemoaning the fact that they had to go to London. “I prefer to play the Jets here at home” he said.
I would think a team earns $4 million or more on ticket sales alone each game (figuring 70,000 fans times $60 per ticket). So to be compensated $1 million by the NFL does not make up for losing $3 million in tickets.
By the way, Jay, last year at this time, I was calling for Tannehill’s head too. I think he turned it around in London last year, so let’s hope for another.

Jay, I’m not a Tannehill doubter as much as you, but I am certainly a doubter. I do feel he’s handicapped under his coaches, and that is killing his development. His pocket presence is horrendous, and that is not the line’s fault. It’s all T-hill’s fault.
I still have nightmares about that safety blitz that resulted in a pick-6. The safety ran at T-hill from 17 yards away, right up the middle. Look where T-hill is standing and where the Safety is. I do NOT blame the o-line. A play like that is designed to let him come. The QB is supposed to see him coming from so far away, and make a simple sidestep. Watch it here:http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/0ap3000000540464/Dolphins-Ryan-Tannehill-throws-second-interception-to-Bills-Preston-Brown

Tannehill looks right at the line. He quickly looks straight ahead only to receive the snap, then he immediately looks right again. No field presence at all.

And when he looks right, he turns his whole body, so that a guy coming at him in the middle is in his blind spot. I guy coming from the left side can be in a QB’s blind spot. But a safety coming up the gut? That guy is only invisible if you’ve contorted your body to make him invisible, and that is exactly what T-hill did. Can’t that be corrected by a coach?

His lack of accuracy cant be corrected and don’t think his poor pocket presence can be corrected either. He also is slow going thru his reads and his delivery is slow. He is more like a failed 6th rd draft choice than a 1st rd pick. I cant believe the Dolphins were satisfied with a below average QB and paid him that huge contract.

As much as it sucks to give up a home game, especially a divisional one. It’s not like the Dolphins have the greatest home field advantage playing at Sun Life the past few seasons. It would make sense that teams like Green Bay and Seattle don’t want to volunteer home games in London considering that their home venues are among the toughest for visiting teams to come and get a win.

@Dolphgang your absolutely right I remember reading a arrtical a few years back which attempted to rank teams by home field advantage and the Dolphins were in the bottom quarter of that list. A sad cry from the Shula days where the Dolphins relished the 1:00 games!

I feel like we might get rid of philbin this year but until Ross sells the team we haven’t got a shot

@Brian M – you are so right! The 1:00 pm games back with Shula were the “12th man” for the Dolphins. You would think the Moron (Ross) might give some thought about how the one advantage he easily has is the heat and humidity!!! Teams start fading in 3rd qtr where the Dolphins are not affected by the hot, humid time of day-that’s when the you want to put the hammer down with plays to gas the other team to where you can get the advantage. But the Moron wanted more 4:00 pm games. What an idiot. I agree, that until we have a different owner, we fans are stuck with this mess. Maybe Uncle Warren (Buffet) is up for some fun! He’s got the bucks and he’s a fan of Suh too. He was wearing his jersey on sidelines so he’s got fan in him. Ross is useless- laughing stock of the NFL owners! He should never have been voted by the other owners to be an owner.

He’s far too concerned with celebrity, rival colleges, bullying legislation, ugly new logos, getting a Super Bowl for the city without caring about Dolphin consequences.
It’s so hard to decipher Mr. Ross’s rationale for keeping Philbin around last year. I refuse to think that Ross is a stupid man. No way. He cannot possibly think Philbin is a good coach when no one else on earth feels that way. Something behind the scenes…

Agreed. There have only been two times in all my years of watching sports where I felt an owner should fire a coach either right in the middle of a game or immediately after. Don’t even give the coach a chance to say goodbye in the locker room or anything. Here’s bus fare…you are not allowed to go home with the team.
ONE was in the Super Bowl a few months ago when Pete Carroll handed a free championship to Tom Brady and the Patriots.
TWO was last week during a 27-0 halftime rout. Yes, the game was THAT bad.

I agree with admin that Ross is not dumb. There are other reasons he keeps philbin. Maybe it’s because every time he has gone head coach shopping he has looked like he knows nothing about football and so he’s gun shy to do it again.

If philbin could get nine wins Ross would keep him of that I’m sure. It’s obvious that Ross is not in this because he’s a dolphin fan like Joe Robbie or a huge fan of the NFL like Wayne H. He is a business man and all he needs this pig to do is churn money. Which it must be doing well enough for his liking.

If that’s the case, and I think it is we as real fans who love the team couldn’t have gotten anything worse.

The best we can hope for is a blowout loss and then Ross replacing philbin but whoever he replaces him with won’t take us to the Super Bowl because those type of coaches won’t coach for Ross. The best we can hope for is another position coach or glorified coordinator hired as our head coach and a nine win season for the rest of Rosses tenure.

Tomorrow will be the first game I don’t watch since 1991.

Well maybe I will watch it if I’m home in time so I should say it the first one in not making my plans around.

I’ve been a Dolphins can for 40 years now. Lived most of my life in the Carolinas. We moved to Orlando with my wife’s job and I was stoked to the point of forgoing the standard FL car tag for the Miami Dolphins one.

I got it last Friday just before the Bills game.

Anyone know how tough it is to swap out? Serioulsy though, this franchise used to be such a joy to follow. We didn’t always win, but we never sucked. We were never the doormat of the league. We have been for two decades now.

The only hope I still have is remembering how bad the Patriots used to be. Anyone can turn it around……

How many times and players that were former Dolphins do we have to watch burn us every time they play Miami??? Brandon Marshall is today’s example! 3 for 89 yards and it’s 7:12 left in 1st Qtr. Local fans, start the campaign! Fans to buy out Ross! This game is disgusting. Tackling is pee wee level.